Patrick Reusse: Lions have been lambs since Bud's days

Bud Grant was announced as the Vikings' second head coach on March 10, 1967. The team will mark the 40th anniversary of Grant's inaugural season with a dinner on Tuesday evening at the McNamara Alumni Center on the university campus.

The location is significant, since Bud was an outstanding Gophers end after World War II, and the alumni center stands near what used to be the horseshoe end of Memorial Stadium.

Considering Grant's status as perhaps the most revered figure in this state's professional sports history, the assumption of all Minnesotans 50-and-under would be that his arrival from Winnipeg caused an outpouring of grand excitement.

Not true.

The Vikings had only one winning season in their first six on the Bloomington prairie with coach Norm Van Brocklin. The Gophers still were a more important autumn attraction to most of us.

Monday is the exact 40th anniversary of Grant's first game as Vikings coach. It was a 27-21 loss to San Francisco and attracted a crowd of 39,638 -- 8,000 below capacity -- to Met Stadium.

Grant's first club finished 3-8-3. The final game was a 14-3 loss to the Lions in Detroit. There was no indication Bud was on the cusp of leading the Vikings to greatness -- to the playoffs after the 1968 season, to the Super Bowl after 1969, and then to three more Super Bowls over the next seven seasons.

There was also no indication that the Detroit Lions would serve as the primary chumps for Grant and for the Vikings coaches who would follow him.

Grant was 158-96-5 in 18 regular seasons as the Vikings coach. That winning percentage of .620 put him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. If you were to take away Bud's 26-8-1 record against the Lions, the winning percentage becomes .598 and the induction into Canton becomes more problematic.

Grant followed his 0-1-1 start against the Lions in '67 with 13 consecutive victories against them. From 1968 through 1979, Bud's record against the Lions was 21-3.

Jerry Burns' six seasons with the Vikings included a seven-game winning streak against the Lions and an 8-4 overall mark. Dennis Green was successful although not dominant against the Lions, going 12-8 in his 10 seasons.

Green's last game against Detroit was a 27-24 loss in the Silverdome on Dec. 16, 2001. That also stands as the Lions' most recent victory in the series.

The Vikings take a 10-game winning streak against the Lions into today's game in Ford Field. That streak remains second to Bud's 13 in a row, but it's much more amazing for these reasons: The Vikings' overall record was 72-26 in the seven seasons in which the 13-game winning streak vs. Detroit took place. The Vikings' overall record is 38-42 in the five seasons covering this 10-game streak.

Mike Tice was 8-0 against Detroit and 24-33 against everyone else. Brad Childress was 2-0 against Detroit and 4-10 against the rest of the schedule in 2006.

Left tackle Jeff Backus has been part of the Lions offensive line through this latest losing streak. He was asked for a theory.

"It seems like whenever there were chances in the past -- the opportunity to really put the nail in the coffin, or to take advantage of something they were doing defensively -- we never took advantage," Backus said. "We had some costly turnovers, made costly mistakes."

Backus then offered what has become the mantra for the 2007 Lions: This is the year when the losing finally stops, against the Vikings and the rest of the NFL.

"I wouldn't have known we lost 10 straight to them unless you brought it up," he said. "This is a new team, a new year and a new confidence around here."

This was Jeff Backus talking in September 2007. It could have been Charlie Sanders inside the Lions locker room 35 years earlier. It was always a new year for those Lions, too, with a new confidence to bring against the Vikings, and almost always with the same result.

That's why the list of speakers for Grant's dinner on Tuesday should have Bill Ford as a late addition. He's been the owner of the Lions since 1964, and thus was very important in getting our guy Bud a plaque in Canton.

Patrick Reusse can be heard weekdays on AM-1500 KSTP at 6:45 and 7:45 a.m. and 4:40 p.m. • preusse@startribune.com